World Justice for The Maltic Witch

Maltic's Well, a level 11 quest I feel most people forget about. It's been in the game for a very very long time, yet it has always bothered me. Why did the writers go through the effort to give her more personality and backstory (if you weren't there, this used to be a very basic quest about just killing an evil witch living in a well), just for the player to slaughter her in cold blood? She even states that the citizens of Maltic forced her down there after trying to, "Hunt [her] like a rabid dog." In her final moments, she only fights you out of fear for her own life, and when the fight concludes, the child even states that she was nice to him.

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth to kill someone who showed fear in her final moments, who was pushed to the brink by a town who abused her due to prejudice, who simply wished to wear what makes her happy and happened to have some warts. I understand she kidnapped a child, but at worst she should be arrested and given a chance to live a better life.

My suggestion is simple, add an option to spare her. Either you tell everyone she's not evil and you let her go or you arrest her, though I'd prefer the former. The choice can happen right before combat would normally begin, like so:

Witch: ...oh my gosh it worked???? It worked, I did a spell for once in my miserable life!!
Witch: W-Wait, that's not good at all, you're gonna... No! You won't take me out of here alive!

[1]: You're right, I won't.
[2]: Wait! Please, I don't want to hurt you. We can talk this out.

Witch: Y-You don't? But I kidnapped a child, and i-its your job to kill me, right?
Witch: Unless... You don't hate me? I... Listen, you can take the child back. I never even wanted to take him.
Witch: I'll leave and never come back, I just want to live in peace with my cowl and spells...
Witch: And... Thank you. For not seeing me as a monster.

Speaking with Rynend:

Rynend: Oh my son! What happened down there? Erh, not a witch, you say?
Rynend: Preposterous! She wore a hat and had warts! And you let her go?!
Child: She really wasn't evil dad! She even made me cookies!
Rynend: Not evil? And she made you cookies? Hmmm...
Rynend: I... suppose as long as my son is back. And you say she's going to leave and never return?
Rynend: I guess we may have jumped to conclusions about her... The least we can do is keep this whole thing between us.
Rynend: Thanks for handling it regardless, I hope this reward will suffice.

There's doesn't need to be any new items or rewards, just a different story ending that feels a little more satisfying and isn't condemning a (mostly) innocent woman to death just for how she looks.

I think small moments like this mean a lot when it comes to making the world feel alive, and making the player feel like they actually have an effect on the world. I hope it is considered.

 

Removes the fight from the quest, making it the easier solution as it just allows you to end the quest without the hardest part
Also, if you look at all of the player's actions across the game, their leanings towards a violent mature seem pretty intentional. You usually try to solve solutions with beating something up (Perhaps a symptom of the player being sent to Wynn from Fruma as a soldier for the war!)

 

I don't think that having an easier solution necessarily makes it any worse. The boss is neither particularly difficult nor particularly interesting. I'd like to have more agency as a player; almost every quest has just one solution, and it's pretty much always "kill without knowing why", and while that worked for Bloodborne, Wynncraft has no payoff for you being a violent sociopath through the whole game. It just kinda make you feel like you're being a bit of a dick, especially when the few quests where you can be the good guy come up. "I'll resolve this situation peacefully, but the lady in the well? Yeah, I totally murdered her."

 

Wynn's story isn't entirely in game. Taking Bloodborne as the metaphor, you haven't even made it to The Nightmare of Mensis yet.

 

Then give a unique reward for killing her. Then, gameplay wise, you can choose between a fight for an item, or sparing to skip the fight.

I still don't think we have to keep the idea that the player is violent. In fact, having quests like this where you choose the peaceful option would go a long way adding depth to the player character.

 

based

 

The player character is intentionally shallow so you can slap whatever you want onto them, aside from them being a brainwashed soldier from Fruma & a human.

 

If they're intentionally shallow to make it easier for a player to put their own ideas on them, why would adding a choice change that? If anything it helps add that player intractability.

 

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Not confirming, as I am not certain on this, but from what I do know it seems like it was originally (and still currently is) the intention of it, but the player's inclination towards violence is likely a product of them being ejected from Fruma, given that the people who are kicked out from Fruma and become soldiers can just be everyday folk (like Tasim, who seems to have had a pretty much entirely normal life up until the events that got him sent to Wynn) who wouldn't really be prepared to, y'know, fight in a war.

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While it's good to give the player autonomy, there are moments where the player has a lack of decision over the character's actions that almost function as a ludonarrative; the player being unable to do anything but kill to progress through a story beat, and the character being someone who's had their life completely changed through brainwashing to be a soldier